Monday, 25 August 2014

Are We in Control of Our Brains? Probably Not

My brain and I have a
somewhat adversarial relationship. It's not nearly as bad as when I was 16, when the
principal could ask me why I ninja kicked a plate-glass window and I could
honestly say I wasn't sure, but it still sometimes feels like that ball of
flesh rattling around in my skull isn't on the same page as me.

I know I'm not alone, and
that the "me versus my brain" thing has long been a rather
popular trope in comedy. But it still seems totally crazy, right? I mean, on a
fundamental level, our brains and our consciousness are tied together, so
viewing one as independent of the other would appear to be a bit absurd. But
it's not as crazy as you or your brain might believe.

I've been thinking about
all this brain stuff lately, not because of any terrible impulse decisions I've
made recently—my brain and I seem to be in accordance on those—but in reaction
to the wave of uproar that's passed through the web in the last month or
two.

There have been two main
reactions to emotion-based research, such Facebook's various studies or OkCupid's
similar efforts. First, there's the general outrage that
companies whose only product is their users would try to better engage and
monetize those users.

While the complaints are
certainly valid, it is pretty curious to see people rally en masse against singular
examples of corporate manipulation of emotion, when it's literally happening
all around us at all times of day. But hey, as another emotion study found, anger is
indeed more viral than joy.

Is
your brain being a pain? Then go kick its ass.

The second reaction is
related, and makes the whole phenomenon a lot more interesting than just
outrage over the latest revelation that cutesy internet companies run by
MySpace Toms are actually megacorporations whose only real concern is
making money: A whole lot of people remain steadfast in their belief that
they cannot be
manipulated, even by something as obscure as slight adjustments to the
emotional timbre of their News Feed.

No, it isn't shaping
US ALL. Leave me out of your blanket diagnoses, because I don't fit that
neurotypical mold. Social interaction ain't shapin' me; no social contact ever
has. In high school I noticed others changing their behavior in an attempt to
please a particular audience, and it disgusted me. Still disgusts me. I am
and will always be the same person, regardless who you are and who else is with
you.

The best adage about the
internet is also an old one: If you're not paying for the product, then youare the product. The vast majority of
the revenue-generating internet, including this here website, is powered by
advertising, which is totally fine; if everything was paywalled, we, as readers
and viewers, wouldn't have nearly as much diversity in our feeds.

The internet remains open
and vibrant because it's mostly free; the tradeoff is that we have advertisers,
companies, and the occasional clicky-headline-obsessed media outlets doing
their damnedest to optimize how they get ads in front of our eyeballs. And
here we come to the most basic question of our lives in the internet: How
subversive is that, really? Are we in control of our brains or not?

The fear is that
OkCupid can alter your perception of the world just by yanking some levers
on its algorithm like the Wizard of Oz. While algorithms really don't appear to be that powerful, there's no doubt
that altering your timeline to show more positive or negative posts can have
small effects on your own mental state.

In that sense, we're not
in control of our brains. We're highly empathetic creatures, and our
emotional connection to fellow humans can subconsciously morph and express
itself in unexpected ways, including my
favorite hypothesis in the area, which suggests yawning is a subconscious,
empathetic behavior.

Recent outrage certainly feels new in the sense that it's
rallying against the early vestiges of a dystopian future in which all of our
information is shaped, honed, and spun to protect the powers-that-be.

(Point: Facebook using
its sway to, say, shape an election is a completely horrifying thought;
Counterpoint: Google is worth a metric fuckton of money precisely because it's
spent years perfecting the algorithm that has more sway over the delivery of
the entirety of human information than anything else, and people don't seem too
pissed about that.)

But it's not new at all.
The best commentary on corporate exploitation of the gap between our
consciousness and our brains is 1988'sThey
Live. Rowdy Roddy Piper and shapeshifter conspiracies aside, the
movie portrays a world in which all of the ads bombarding our eyeballs are also carrying hidden propaganda
messages brainwashing people into consumption and subservience.

That extra layer—everyone
knows that ads full of attractive women drinking champagne and
perfectly-stubbled men smoking cigarettes are meant to evoke a response in us,
but here there's that plus subversiveness—would feel
shockingly prescient if it wasn't already a real concern decades ago.

In 1970, Del Hawkins
published a landmark paper on marketing research, which helped give rise
to the concept of subliminal marketing. Ultimately, Hawkins'
"attempts to form subliminal associations with behavioral consequences
proved futile," but the idea is a sticky one, and myriad researchers have
tried develop a scientific process for separating us from our brains in order
to make us simply understand that Pepsi is better than Coke.

Ultimately, subliminal
marketing proved less effective than traditional full-page spreads of
supermodels. As the opening line of a 1987 paper reads, "The popular belief in subliminal
advertising has remained robust in spite of the fact that advertising
professionals almost universally discount it as a practical
technique."

Layers
upon layers of subversion? No, just the basic suggestibility of our own
subconscious.

Or, as one 1988 paper snarkily puts it, "The history of
subliminal research consists of cycles during which investigators report a
subliminal finding, others fail to replicate it, but, nevertheless, the finding
is publicized and achieves some degree of acceptance among lay audiences."

But is the failure of
subliminal marketing due to the fact that we're more in control of our brains
than we might think, or the fact that in the 70s and 80s the right platform
didn't exist?

In recent years,
subliminal marketing has been given a sexier rebrand with the new name
"neuromarketing," which certainly sounds more scientific and less
subversive. A rather interesting 2012 paper, which is available in full,
is provocative: While it lays clear that the executive's dream—that brain scans
and neuroimaging can be used to create the perfect marketing campaign, one
which can hack viewers' brains and make them want to buy right now—isn't particularly realistic, preying on consumers'
brains, and not their selves, does have demonstrable effects.

"To sum up,
neuromarketing cannot push a 'buy button' in the customer’s brain because there
is no 'buy button' to push," the authors write.

However, "the
findings indicate that they tend to think 'the person on the screen is me', and
they behave, react, and feel accordingly. This notion encourages the use of
neuromarketing that utilizes still pictures and video clips as well as
arbitrarily chosen small groups of test subjects for studying customer
behaviour and reactions in different situations," they continue.

In other words, because
we are highly empathetic, more immersive and emotional advertising tends to
register more with our brains—if not our conscious selves, which are probably
more concerned with how much money we have.

And where are our
experiences already highly immersive and flooded with interaction? That's
right, in our social feeds. "We believe that the findings and the method
can be used not only for assessing the buying process, but also for testing new
product and service concepts and applications, especially in the high-tech
sector," the authors write.

So are we in control of
our brains? Probably not. Even an understanding that all of your social feeds
and searches are honed, for better or worse, by an unknown algorithm isn't
enough to counter the effects, as there's no baseline for you to judge against.
Facebook's feed algorithm is constantly being refined, the people in it are
constantly evolving on their own, and it's all both too complex and too subtle
to try to actively counter, even if you knew there was something worth pushing
back against in the first place.

Multiply that singular
example across the vastness of the internet, and we're left with two scenarios:
One in which we're all being subverted by third parties; or one in which there's
so much noise that somehow it all equilibrates, or at least don't get pulled
too far in either direction. Funnily enough, there are also two solutions:
Accept the fact that we don't control our brains as much as we like and move on
with our day, or simply chuck your computer into the toilet and go
outside.

The Shocking
Drink and Incredible Coke History Of Subliminal Advertising

Looking for a new way to
publicize your product?
Have you considered implanting suggestions in your current advertising that
link your product to sex and power?

The birth of subliminal
advertising as we know it dates to 1957 when a market researcher named James
Vicary inserted the words “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” into a movie.

The words appeared for a
single frame, allegedly long enough for the subconscious to pick up, but too
short for the viewer to be aware of it. The subliminal ads supposedly created
an 18.1% increase in Coke sales and a 57.8% increase in popcorn sales.

Vicary’s results turned
out to be a hoax. But more recent experiments have shown that subliminal
messages actually can affect behaviour in small ways.

A Harvard study from 1999
employed a similar method to Vicary’s — subjects played a computer game in
which a series of words flashed before them for a few thousandths of a second.
One set got positive words like “wise,” “astute,” and “accomplished.” The other
set got words like “senile,” “dependent,” and “diseased.”

Despite the fact that
these words flashed far too quickly to be consciously perceived, those who
received positive words exited the room significantly faster than those who got
negative words.

However, William Peter
Blatty, author of The Exorcist,
prominently spoke out against subliminals when the movie adaptation of his book
came under fire for including allegedly subliminal messaging. He said, “There
are no subliminal images. If you can see it, it’s not subliminal.”

So do advertisers
consciously choose to include subliminal messages in their ads? Can they
harness subliminal power to associate their products with sex and power? If so,
does it actually affect a consumer’s buying decisions? We’ve gathered several
ads containing supposedly subliminal messages — you be the judge.

A sexy
outline of a woman on top of a can of Coke

Is
this a subliminal racist message?

The
words Coca-Cola supposedly engraved in The One Ring To Rule Them All

A
phallic pattern in the abdominal muscles

Can
you spot the nude female torso at 6 seconds in?

The
original ad is on the left, subliminal parts are highlighted on the right

Linking
the brand with masculinity

A
hidden dollar in this KFC sandwich links it to power and wealth

A
McDonald's ad appeared for one frame in the middle of Iron Chef, but it was
supposedly a glitch

Flip
the image to see that sex helps sell

A
suggestive Burger King ad

Almost
a parody of subliminal advertising -- loading the commercial with suggestions
and barely showing the product

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